This invention relates to manually carried and operated devices for spreading seeds and particulate material such as fertilizer, salt, sweeping compound and the like upon lawns, gardens, sidewalks and floors.
Various devices adapted for spreading small seeds, lime and fertilizer compounds on lawns and gardens are well known. Such spreaders commonly include a hopper and an agitator-spreader mechanism which induces the material to fall from the bottom of the hopper and thereafter casts the material outwardly from the hopper onto the ground surface. Wheel-supported spreaders typically employ a wheel-driven rotary disk adjacent the bottom opening of the hopper to impart a radially directed force to particles of falling material to effect a spreading action. U.S. Pat. No. 1,270,849 discloses a hand-held fertilizer spreader having a carrying handle grasped by one hand and a rod positioned within the hopper operable by the other hand for agitating the material in the hopper and oscillating a spreading disc. Prior art spreaders typically include means for regulating the rate of discharge from the hopper by varying the size of an opening from the hopper.
Another type of known dispensing device for particulate material relies solely on gravitational force to cause the hopper contents to flow from the hopper to a discharge spout when a gate or valve therebetween is opened by the operator. In such devices the material is not scattered or spread upon a underlying surface, but is permitted to drop into a plant container or into a prepared hole in the ground surface. Dispensers of this kind are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,170,598; 3,106,322; 4,246,854; and 4,286,737.
However, the desirable features of the last mentioned type of dispensers are their handling ease and light weight due in large part to their lack of mechanical complexity. On the otherhand, such devices are not suitable for spreading particulate material in a pattern or swath in the manner of a heavier and bulkier wheeled spreader or a hand carried spreader of the type disclosed in the cited U.S. Pat. No. 1,270,849. A combination of the light weight and simplicity of a gravity-drop type dispenser with the spreading ability of a rotating disc type spreader would provide a device having advantageous characteristics not provided by either alone. However, a dilemma arises as to how to incorporate light weight, manual operability and structural simplicity in a device which functions to dispense evenly a wide range of materials in variable patterns.
In the absence of an efficient yet low cost manually held and operated spreader having the desirable characteristics just described, owners of wheeled spreaders or state-of-the-art manually carried spreaders are often unable or unwilling to undertake certain spreading tasks utilizing such cumbersome devices, but opt, instead, to attempt spreading materials by hand. Irregularities in coverage and in density of material inevitably result. Thus, only marginally acceptable results can be expected in such common hand spreading operations as sowing grass seed in small replacement areas, spreading ice-melting salt or sand on walkways, applying granular fertilizer or lime to the ground beneath overhanging foliage of shrubs, flowers or garden row plants, or scattering sweeping compound or grease absorbing material on floors inside buildings.